The aim of this study is to introduce an educational game called The Star Game, and to examine its effects on prospective science teachers' conceptual understanding of stars. In addition, their opinions of The Star Game were examined. The study was conducted with a total of 54 prospective teachers in three groups. The Star Game was played in all…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of STEM Curriculum designed and implemented for undergraduate programs of faculties of education. The research model is experimental. The design is a single group pre-test post-test experimental design. The study group consisted of 18 pre-service teachers studying in the Department of Science…

Turkey's politically induced 'curricular modernization initiative' intended a philosophical change and a system-level transformation from behaviouristic to constructivist-inspired pedagogies in the early 2000s. Science curriculum has been one of the curricula that has taken precedence. It has changed four times since then. The latest science…

Any society needs more scientifically literate citizens even if they do not follow a career in science. In the 2015 PISA assessment, Turkey ranked 34th among 35 OECD countries based on science literacy scores. The relatively unsuccessful results of Turkey from international level examinations like PISA has necessitated the questioning of various…

The main purpose of this research was to develop a guide material in line with learning outcomes of the unit for the 5th Graders titled Solving the Puzzle: Our Body in order to be utilized during out-of-school learning activities by science teachers. There is no guide material developed in our country for science teachers to be used in out-of…

In this paper, I argue that contemporary accounts of nature of science (NoS) are limited in their depiction of "science" and that new perspectives are needed to broaden their characterisation and appeal for science education. In particular, I refer to the role of interdisciplinary characterisations of science in informing the theory and…

The idea of establishing Science High Schools in Turkey was discussed in a multilateral project at the beginning of 1963. The Ministry of National Education (MoNE), Ford Foundation, Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara University, and International Development Agency (AID) participated in this project to establish these schools. In…

Fifteen secondary education chemistry curricula published from 1957 until 2007 were examined based on the dimensions of rationale, goals, and subject matter. An examination of documents in the scope of qualitative research was carried out in the study. The goals included in the examined chemistry curricula were analyzed according to the cognitive,…

Research acknowledges that reform efforts in education often face resistance, particularly on the part of teachers. This study attempts to get to a better understanding of the reasons of resistance to change on the teachers' side through utilizing the structure of scientific revolutions as described by Thomas Kuhn as an analogy. To this end, a…

This paper reports on an attempt to investigate Turkish primary school students' interest in science by using their self-generated questions. We investigated students' interest in science by analyzing 1704 self-generated science-related questions. Among them, 826 questions were submitted to a popular science magazine called Science and Children.…

The nature of science aspects (NOS) are the most emphasized theme in many curriculum and reform attempts. Teachers as a curriculum implementer in the classroom play important role for policy, arrangements and classroom experiences on NOS understandings of students. Researchers generally assessed the teachers' NOS conceptions using open-ended…

The purpose of this paper is analyzing the new Science and Technology curriculum, which was declared as the new primary school curriculum in August 2004 by Turkish Minister of Education (MoE), based on Posner's (2004) curriculum analysis framework. The written curriculum was examined and the findings were supported with a variety of resources…

The purpose of this study was to investigate fourth-grade students image of current science teaching by using a Draw-A-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C), and give a glance whether the new restructured science education reform in Turkey is implemented successfully or not. Fifty-five (34 girls and 21 boys) fourth-grade students from three…

The last one thousand years or more of Turkish science educational development have numerous historical similarities to other parts of the world. While documentation of historical educational developments are important to those whose ancestors are being described, the true value of this regional- and country-specific evolutionary historical…

There is no aerospace industry in Turkey, and the level of operational activity is low even though the potential for the exploitation of aviation is high. The government of Turkey hopes to establish an aircraft factory in conjunction with a foreign contractor and is aware of the need for aerospace engineering education. This paper describes the…